According to Wikipedia: A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person makes a promise to do an act of self-improvement or something slightly nice, such as opening doors for people beginning from New Year’s Day.
Love them or loathe them, New Year’s resolutions are part and parcel of the month of January. We’re only three days in and already I have read umpteen blog posts on the topic so I thought I would throw my two pennies worth in as well. Looking back on my resolutions from last year I’m pleased to see that they were suitably vague as to allow me to claim some modicum of success for most of them. I did manage to go to the gym with some sort of regularity, even if it was just once or twice a week. There can never be enough one-to-one time with the children but at least I made it one of my top priorities in the last 12 months and will continue to do so in 2015. The big clear out of clutter is on-going but some proper headway has been made since this time last year and all the baby paraphernalia is now gone. I haven’t added up and compared my spending in 2014 to the previous year, but I think that at the very least I became more mindful about what I spent my cash on, resulting in fewer mistake buys. The smoothie-making fell by the wayside before January 2014 drew to a close but, as my last resolution was to be kinder to myself, I will let that one go without too much admonishment.
So, what about this year? As the 12 months of 2015 stretch before us like unwritten pages, I am somewhat at a loss to come up with things that I want to achieve this year. Like most people I want to be happy and healthy and I wish the same for my family but that’s hardly going to set me off on some great path to self improvement. However, I do want to work on being able to let things go more easily and not obsess over what other people have said or done or worry so much about how they may have interpreted things that I have said or done.
A year ago I was less than one month into a new job that involved writing about an industry that was completely new to me, and one thing that I have realised over the past 12 months is that I love to learn and to challenge myself. As much as I love being a mum, now that the children are all at full time school, having a job that I enjoy has given me a renewed sense of purpose and helped me carve out an identity apart from that of ‘wife and mother’. So I guess one of my resolutions is to carry on learning and get better at my job while still striving to have a healthy work/family balance.
Lately I’ve been craving a more minimalist lifestyle and by that I don’t mean painting my walls white and wearing sharply cut Helmut Lang but rather a change in attitude towards valuing experiences over material possessions. Having too much stuff can weigh us down emotionally plus trying to keep on top of the clutter takes time away from doing other more enjoyable things. Over the past couple of months I have been purging my wardrobe of things I no longer wear and while I am still some way off having a capsule wardrobe, it has made an enormous difference.
On a more frivolous note I could do with stepping up my grooming regime a notch – there comes a time when the unkempt look is just unkempt, rather than channeling Kate Moss at Glastonbury. Let this be the year that I take my nail polish off as soon as it starts to chip rather than leaving it for another five days, pluck my brows every week, invest in an eyelash curler and wear jewellery (other than my wedding rings) and matching underwear every day.
New Year’s resolutions are obviously not my forte; it took me about an hour to come up with that rather meager list. So, do tell, what are your resolutions for 2015?
P.S. Just as I was about to press Publish I came across this New Year’s resolutions questionnaire here so I thought I would add my answers to this post:
A bad habit I’m going to break: Worrying too much
A destination I’d like to visit: California
I’m going to work harder at: Not stressing when we’re getting ready to leave for school in the mornings
A project I’d like to finish: Our new kitchen extension
A class I’d like to take: Photography
I’d like to spend more time doing: Traveling
A food I want to eat more of: Leafy greens
I want to wear more: Jewellery
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